Hands On: The Surreal 'Lucid Trips' VR Experience

Sara Lisa Vogl is a self-proclaimed virtual reality shaman who guides people into trance-like worlds.

The Hamburg, Germany-based Vogl was in Los Angeles recently and provided PCMag with a demo of her skills. Her medium of choice is a Lucid Trips, a VR experience that "takes places in planetary dream worlds [where] you explore artistically designed planets with a completely new concept, defining and navigating your avatar in a distinctive way, using hand motion controllers."

"Lucid Trips came out of a desire to do things you can't do in real life within a fantastical and trippy world," Vogl told PCMag. "I think it's totally important to know how you experience your real world and how, through being somewhere virtual for a while, you can change your everyday experience."

A designer by nature, Vogl said she taught herself to code "and became fascinated by how you type in numbers, concepts, and commands and then suddenly get to create a new reality."

For Lucid Trips, she operates the experience from a PC, and helps users move through the virtualscape. For my demo, I slipped into a small curtained-off area in the lobby of a Hollywood hotel, so I didn't wander off inside the game and hurt myself. I put on an HTC Vive headset, and Vogl went to the computer to load up the game and watch my progress on a monitor. I can't really explain this, but I felt as if I were about to have radiation and she'd retreated to a safe area while I was left alone with the machine, which was slightly alienating at first.

There was no reason to worry, though. She returned swiftly and touched my elbow lightly, telling me to hold out my arms in front of me. Two controllers were placed in my hand as the screen suddenly burst into a brightly shimmering solar system.

Elongated, ghostly white arms appeared in front of me, spookily slim as if encased in elbow-length gloves with tapering fingers. I quickly worked out that these were my virtual appendages. They were created inside Unity using Inverse Kinematics, which is how game designers plot the trajectory of controllers and allow on-screen representation of arms moving through virtual space.

It was beautiful but a bit eerie; vast and lonely. Vogl touched my wrist to show me how to use the controller to move forward. The world shifted and morphed and suddenly I was flying, almost weightless in a low-gravity atmosphere. The stresses of Los Angeles traffic and needing coffee fell away.

There are many theories about what it takes to create the real sensation of "presence," but it's clear it takes not only a high-end, head-mounted device and superior quality headphones, but a truly skillful visual and motion artistic team. Lucid Trips is exactly the sort of dreamy planet you'd like to hang out on after a stressful day in the real world. Unlike an RPG, there's no set pattern of exploration. If you want to just drift and chill, you can. Or, fly into and through glowing orbs, temporarily filling your field of view with light, which is a pleasantly odd sensation.

But then I started to fall.

I'll admit: I panicked. I'd been tripping the light fantastic, just dozily enjoying the scenery. But I forgot where I was and ran out of power, literally. It was all going dark. This is where it's useful to have a VR shaman on hand. Especially if you're an easily suggestible, highly imaginative sort of human (*coughs*).

Vogl sensed my confusion and checked my in-game vitals. She quickly pushed the controllers down onto the planet to refuel via embedded gems. On the screen I saw my battery power surge to 100 percent. She showed me how to use the controllers to thrust up into the alien skies again, and I was off. Flying around most happily, I dipped down only to get more gem-fuel before soaring off again.

Sadly, time was short so I couldn't explore all the worlds that lay beyond the initial dreamscape. Apparently there are other planets and artistic displays and a few fun Easter eggsI'd love to explore more fully.

I took off the Vive and tentatively re-entered the world. I was back inside Earth's gravity rules, a bit unsteady on my feet at first. But once I got my bearings, I did feel calmer, more expansive, and truly chilled out.

Vogl was smiling. It's clear she enjoys watching people experience the world she had a hand in creating.

Does she think VR is a better place to live than reality? "At the moment you can't live there full-time," she laughed. "But I am fascinated by the existence of multiple quantum realities and believe that by engaging in VR you can change how you experience your waking life for the better for the future. You can change your response to reality by experiencing what's possible in the virtual realm."

A VR Shaman Is Born Vogl's first encounter with VR was two years ago via the original Oculus Rift Dev Kit. "My imagination was sparked instantly," Vogl told PCMag. "And I knew I wanted to take it further."

So why the shaman label? "I have a strong sensation of how other people feel," Vogl explained.

Like an empath? "Yes, I believe I am," she said. "I watch people closely as they move through our game Lucid Trips, and I get their mental state. I can see where to guide them next, or if they have a problem, be there for them.

"I'm also really into the computer as well as the people—creating a symbiosis—a link—hence the shaman concept. I'm fascinated by the physical changes in people's hormonal and emotional state as they spend time in our virtual worlds and have that extreme focus and concentration which improves the brain."

Vogl's first major experience as a VR shaman was last month at the Game Science Center in Berlin. "It was called Dis/connected and it was more of an art performance than a game, per se," she said. "I accompanied and directed Thorsten S. Wiedemann as he stayed immersed inside a VR world for 48 hours."

As the Dis/connected website explains, "no human being has ever spent such a long time in computer generated virtual reality without sleep."

Vogl's role was to load up activities to distract, engage, soothe, and encourage Wiedemann as he stayed out of the quotidian realm. VR developers from all over the world sent links to Vogl, who programmed into the night during the project, which was ultimately successful.

"I'm totally excited about the future of VR," Vogl said. "And I'm looking forward to the time where you have a small device you can pop in your pocket and just put it on whenever you want to focus and be somewhere else entirely."

Better living (without) chemistry but through code? "Perhaps," she smiled.

About the Author

Sophia Stuart is an award-winning digital strategist and technology columnist. Voted one of the "Top 21 Social Media Superstars" by Min Online in 2009, Sophia was an executive at Hearst from 2006 - 2013, winning a Webby Award for Cosmo Mobile and an MVA for Cosmo International Digital Strategy. Sophia now lives in Los Angeles and runs TheDigitalCheckUp.com consultancy. She was a judge for both the SheSays global awards (2014) and the Bookmarks, South Africa (2013). She has written for many publications including Esquire Mexico, Harper’s Bazaar Australia, Red, Screen International, TV World, The Independent newspaper (UK) and ELLE China. See Full Bio